Antonio 'El Gallego' Soto, leader of Rebel Patagonia

Antonio Gonzalo Soto Canalejo was born in El Ferrol
(Spain) on 8 October 1897. His parents were Antonio Soto Moreira and
Concepción Canalejo González. His father perished on board the [Spanish
naval flagship] ‘Oquendo’ during the war in Cuba shortly after Antonio
was born. When Antonio was three, his mother remarried, becoming the
wife of Eduardo Rey and the whole family then moved away to Argentina.
Antonio had problems getting along with his stepfather and because of
this his mother sent him back to Galicia.

After some years in El Ferrol, Antonio Soto
returned to Buenos Aires at the age of seventeen in 1914. The city was
a political cauldron with strikes, demonstrations and anarchist
newspapers urging struggle.

Without doubt, the Russian revolution in October
1917 was the most telling factor in the political making of Antonio
Soto, just as it was for the Argentinean workers’ movement of the day.
Antonio clung to high expectations of the achievements of the Bolshevik workers.

At the age of 22, Antonio joined the ‘Serrano
Mendoza’ Theatre Company touring the towns of Patagonia. On one of its
many tours the company stopped over in Río Gallegos. The working class
atmosphere in the little town captivated Antonio. Before performing and
moving on with the drama troupe, Antonio paid a visit to the Workers’
Society local there. There he heard the Basque journalist Jos Mara
Borrero, an advisor with the Workers’ Society. This journalist wielded
great influence. Borrero exercised a telling influence over the Río
Gallegos workers and it was he that spotted Soto as a potential leader
holding out great promise for the expansion of the union, so much so
that he encouraged Soto to drop out of the theatre troupe and take over
the leadership of the union.

Within months, on Sunday 24 May 1920, Soto was
elected general secretary at a general meeting of the FORA-affiliated
Río Gallegos Workers’ Society. Tensions were running high at that
point: on the one hand the farm labourers were holding out for better
working conditions and on the other the estancia (ranch) owners
were worried about the slump in wool prices and the levels of
organisation and demands emanating from the anarchist workers. In light
of this, the union called a general strike. Things were very strained.
Santa Cruz province was brought to a standstill by the workers.

Repression soon followed. The military
authorities mobilised sailors and police and set about a crackdown on
anything reminiscent of a strike. In just a couple of hours, dozens of
union activists were rounded up. According to contemporary witnesses,
Antonio Soto dodged the crackdown and took shelter in the home of a
Galician woman living on the outskirts of town. This housewife was
known in anarchist circles as Doña Máxima Lista (i.e. Mrs Maximalist)

On 28 January 1921, the 10th Cavalry Regiment
under Lieutenant Colonel Héctor Varela boarded the ‘Guardia Nacional’,
bound for Río Gallegos. And the provincial governor arrived on 29
January, months after he had been appointed. Governor Yza’s arrival
brought some mellowing to both sides and negotiations began. Meanwhile
Yza released the jailed trade unionists and eased up on the repression
in the southern towns. This ‘jaw-jaw’ approach and an undertaking that
the workers’ demands would be met brought the strike to a conclusion.

In July 1921 a number of incidents occurred that
led to a breakdown in relations between the workers and the employers.
The conditions agreed with the estancia owners were not fully
implemented. Meanwhile, ten shots were fired through the window of the
home of the Trading Company of Patagonia Ltd.s book-keeper Eloy del Val
in Puerto Deseado after he had laid off some workers. The book-keeper
came through that unscathed but the attack made a huge impact in Buenos
Aires. Members of the Workers’ Society stopped the leader of the Santa
Cruz Patriotic League, Dr Sicardi, in the street and relieved him of a
gun that he was carrying. Even as this was happening in town, out in
the countryside the peons overran seven estancias and made off
with horses. But without question it was an incident that occurred on
the night of 9 July (Argentinean National Day) that was to leave its
mark on subsequent developments. A whole schedule of patriotic events
culminated that evening in a banquet held to mark Argentinean
independence. The Español Hotel was the location
chosen for this feast, attended by leading personalities from around
the province. Almost a hundred guests were about to take their seats
when one of the waiters tipped off the chef Antonio Paris, a countryman
of Soto’s, that those present included Manuel Fernndez, the owner of
the Varela & Fernández company that was under boycott on Soto’s
instructions. Antonio Paris called the waiters together and, on behalf
of the Workers’ Society, banned them from serving at the tables. His
Galician countrymen backed the Workers’ Society delegate’s decision.
The Galicians’ refusal outraged the guests who saw it as an affront to
their Argentinean homeland. Given how things were, the guests plumped
for self-service under the watchful eyes of the waiting staff who saw
this as a minor victory. Such insubordination and anti-Argentinean
conduct, as the estancia owners saw it, pushed the various bourgeois factions into closing ranks against the workers.

Tensions in Río Gallegos were rising and Antonio
Soto was also having to contend with attacks coming from other trade
union groups egged on by reactionary factions.

In Río Gallegos the police jailed Antonio Paris,
a Workers’ Society member. During the arrest operation the union local
was searched. On 24 October 1921, a general strike was called.

Up in Buenos Aires, President Yrigoyen invited a
friend of his, Lieutenant Colonel Varela, to oversee a crackdown in
Patagonia. Whilst Varela was preparing his troops in the Campo de Mayo
barracks, on 31 October Antonio Soto brought out the peons from the
Buitreras, Alquina, Rincón de los Morros, Glencross, La Esperanza and
Bella Vista estancias. A straggling 300-man column of
farm-workers then headed for El Turbio and Punta Alta. Other union
delegates brought out the workforce on all the estancias
between Lago Argentino and Punta Alta. In less than seven days, these
men had spread the rebellion across the enormous area covering
southeast Santa Cruz territory. This first phase of the campaign, led
by Antonio Soto, was entirely peaceable. The object was to secure the
release of those jailed in Río Gallegos. By 5 November the entire south
of Santa Cruz had been brought to a standstill. Several columns, 60-,
100- or 200-men strong roamed the desolate south under a red flag.

The night of 6-7 December was one of the longest in Antonio Soto’s life. The army was at the gates of the La Anita estancia.
The workers called a meeting. Juan Farina, who was of Chilean
extraction, suggested that they call off the strike and negotiate with
the army. Most of the Chilean peons backed that option. Then it was the
turn of the German anarchist Pablo Schulz to speak and he pointed out
that the only way to win was to stand and fight.

Faced with a meeting leaning towards a compromise
solution, Antonio Soto played his final hand and suggested that they
dispatch two men under a white flag to where the troops were to ask the
officer commanding for conditions relating to the release of the
comrades held in Río Gallegos and the honouring of the previous year’s
agreement. Two Chileans were to be assigned this task. As they
approached the military, they were shot out of hand and the military
rejected any sort of negotiations. The military commanders then sent in
three troopers under a white flag to inform the rebels that the army
was only prepared to offer them unconditional surrender, in return for
which they would all be spared and treated decently. The strikers’
leaders asked for an hour to hold a meeting. The Chilean leader Farina
was all for acceptance of the army’s offer. Schulz on the other hand
was of the view that now more than ever they had to stand firm.
Meanwhile, Soto delivered the speech of his life. [Historian] Osvaldo
Bayer gives this account of that part of the meeting: “In more
theatrical tones, he called upon all there to listen. And he was more
than ever the Galician as he told them:

‘They’re going to shoot every man jack of you.
Nobody will be left alive. Let’s move out. Comrades, let us carry on
with this strike indefinitely until we win. Do not put your trust in
the military: they’re the most wretched, treacherous, craven scum on
earth. They are cowards above all else, resenting their obligation to
wear uniform and give lifelong obedience. They have no idea what work
is and they despise anybody that enjoys freedom of thought. Do not give
yourselves up, comrades. Wait for the dawn of social redemption and
freedom for all. Let us fight for that, let us take to the hills. Do
not surrender yourselves.’”

He pounded his fists, beat his chest, yelled
until tears rolled down his cheeks but no answer came. Antonio Soto -
tall, wearing a revolutionary’s cap, talking about the meaning of
freedom. He tried to use his words to boost a morale that had died once
and for all, its fate now sealed. Soto was reluctant to admit defeat.
And there, surrounded by that marvellous landscape, this was his last meeting.

“You are workers, toilers. Keep up the strike,
until you are victorious once and for all and shape a new society with
neither poor nor rich, where there are no guns, no uniforms, where
there is consideration and respect for every human being, where no one
needs to bend the knee to any soutane [ie priest] or bully-boy.”

The meeting then put things to a vote and
Farina’s motion won. Schulz stated that he was completely opposed to
that option but would defer to the decision of the meeting. For his
part, Soto also spoke out against it, stating that he wasn’t about to
let himself fall into the hands of the military and lose his life in
such a wretched manner. He made one last appeal for them to follow his
example. And bade them farewell saying: “I am not meat to be tossed to
the hounds. I’ll stay if it’s a fight we’re talking about, but you
comrades have no stomach for a fight.” (Evidence of eye-witnesses
Fernández and Lada).

Soto was followed by twelve of the strikers and
they used the fall of night to ride off into the mountains. That was
one ghastly night. The military indulged in some real human butchery
and most of the surrendering strikers were humiliated, tortured and
shot. According to the figures bandied about, something between 500 and
6,500 strikers surrendered at the La Anita estancia. According
to the anarchist FORA, between 150 and 250 strikers were gunned down in
La Anita; and, during the entire conflict, about 1,500 workers.

Antonio Soto and his band fled for Chile via the
Sentinela pass after five days roaming the Cordillera pursued by the
Argentinean army and with Chilean carabineers on their heels, trying to
stop them from entering Chile. Soto made it out to Puerto Natales,
where comrades from the Workers’ Federation harboured him. Conscious
that he was in danger in town, the Chilean leaders decided to move him
by ship to Punta Arenas where he would find shelter at the local of the
Magellan Straits Workers’ Federation. He was to stay in Punta Arenas
for a few days until, on the urging of his comrades, he moved on to
Valparaiso. Soto moved into a small hotel near the city docks, striking
up a friendship with the daughter of his landlords. A few months later
he married Amanda Souper and moved to Iquique in northern Chile. That
first marriage produced six children: Alba, Antonio, Mario, Aurora,
Amanda and Enzo. But Soto had an accident in that nitrate-mining town
and moved away to Santiago de Chile, where he carried on clandestinely
with his political activities whilst working as a driver of his own
bus. Police harassment prompted him to move house continually until he
settled in Punta Arenas before moving on to Puerto Natales. There he
set up a cinema, giving it the name “Libertad” (Freedom). Things did
not go well for him there and he was prompted to return to his trade as
a farm labourer and for many years he was an advisor to the trade
unions in southern Chile.

In 1936, when civil war erupted in Spain, Soto
wanted to fight for the Republic but his health forbade that. On 5
March 1938, he re-married, his wife this time being a native of Chiloé
island, Dorotea Cárdenas, with whom he was to have a daughter, Isabel
Soto. In 1945 the family moved to Punta Arenas where he found work in a
yard repairing ships’ engines and later he opened up a fruit stall in
the market and the ‘Oquendo’ restaurant, named after the ship on which
his father had served.

It was during these years that he founded the
Spanish Republican Club, the Galician Club and a local chapter of the
International Red Cross.

Soto’s deteriorating health forced him to give up
his restaurant and he decided to open a small boarding house in his own
name: that was in the Calle Ecuatoriana and his earnings were
supplemented with a lorry for hire at the docks.

In 1962 he gave up work entirely and on 11 May 1963 died in Punta Arenas of a stroke, aged 65.

His funeral drew a massive crowd. The procession
was headed by the banners of the Red Cross, the Spanish Republican Club
and by the Galician flag carried by the Galician Club.